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International Conference
Minerals in Egypt, from Naqada to Alexandria
Royal Academy for Overseas Sciences
Brussels, 3-4 October 2022
pp. 143-173
What Type of Bronze was Ancient Egyptian HsmnHsmn?
by
Martin *
. — Hsmn; bjA; Tin Bronze; Arsenical Copper; Bronze Age Egypt.
. — This paper deals with the correct lexicographic identification of the word
Hsmn, which was in Egyptology usually translated as “(tin) bronze”, if denoting metal.
The departure point is the discussion and arguments presented in 1961 by John R. Harris
in his monumental work Lexicographical Studies in Ancient Egyptian Minerals. Previous
work on the subject and Harris’ arguments are revisited. The weak points are detected as
the identification of the colour of the metal and quite peculiar categories of material cul-
ture denoted by Hsmn. Moreover, Hsmn appears to be originally an adjective of the seman-
tically broader word bjA denoting copper, iron, and other phenomena. "smn can be trans-
lated as tin bronze and/or arsenical copper, although bjA can be used for the same metals
throughout the Egyptian Bronze Age. In other words, we cannot expect modern scientific
precision in naming alloys from the ancient languages.
Introduction
John R. Harris in his monumental work, Lexicographical Studies in Ancient
Egyptian Minerals, proposed real-world identifications for the ancient Egyptian
words denoting minerals, stones, ores, and metals (Harris, 1961). Large part of
these lexical identifications was sustained by further research and is still used
today, learned by students, used by professionals in the field. However, some of
the identifications need to be revisited under the spotlight of the improved under-
standing of ancient evidence. Elsewhere, I have argued at length a case for bjA
as the correct reading of the ancient Egyptian word for copper, contrary to the
conclusions of Harris and his reading of this particular word group.
An outstanding question (cf. Odler, 2023) remained the correct identification of
the word Hsmn, especially since the New Kingdom texts were out of the scope of
the referred work. Herein, I would like to continue the argument, exactly where it
was left open, noting that the recently published ‘Notebook of Dhutmose’ does use
the word Hsmn quite seldom, especially where it should use it always, according to
our current understanding of its translation (Odler, 2023, p. 82). Thus, the aim of
this text is to reassess Harris’ equivalence of the ancient Egyptian word Hsmn to the
* Newcastle University, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Newcastle upon Tyne,
NE1 7RU (United Kingdom). Email: martin.odler@newcastle.ac.uk
— 144 —
“(tin) bronze”, the main metal of the Bronze Age. Because the translation under
investigation, as proposed by Harris, is still used in contemporary Egyptology, we
will study in detail the arguments presented by Harris, as well as the ancient texts
cited by him and a few studies on which his argument stood. Only after reassessing
the validity of his proposal, will we induce selected evidence uncovered after the
publication of Harris’ seminal work, especially the above- mentioned notebook of
scribe Dhutmose (Hölzl, Neumann & Demarée, 2018).
This whole exercise does not want to denigrate or diminish the Herculean
effort of John R. Harris, which is hard to match today, with all the advantages of
digital humanities. Simply, the understanding of ancient Egyptian metallurgy has
developed further. It is not perfect and existing lacunae need to be acknow ledged
as well. Nevertheless, the case for Hsmn as the sole counterpart of the (tin) bronze
likely underwent a development through the Bronze Age.
Reading and Writing of the Metals bjAbjA and HsmnHsmn in Comparison
Numerous issues in the research of ancient Egyptian metals are uncertain, but
there is at least one certainty. Both in hieroglyphs and in hieratic, we are able to
distinguish the writing and reading of the words bjA and Hsmn, as they were writ-
ten with distinct signs, in case of bjA the sign N34, and in case of Hsmn the sign
U32 (fig. 1). Therefore, even if written side by side, we can read and understand
well when the specific metal Hsmn was meant. But there the certainty ends.
Fig. 1. — Hieroglyphic and hieratic writing of the signs for bjA,
Hsmn and DA in the New Kingdom, after Möller (1909).
Gardiner’s sign list N34, bjA
Gardiner’s sign list U32, Hsmn
Gardiner’s sign list U28, DA
— 145 —
Egyptological research of the ancient Egyptian texts and iconography resulted
in the most likely and most frequent identification of the specific sign group,
rendering metal, and written mainly with the sign N34 of Gardiner’s sign list, as
“copper”. Harris proposed reading of this group as Hmty, after a long discussion
of the available evidence. Often the sole used sign of the group is N34, and the
reading is sustained also for these single occurrences (Harris, 1961, pp. 50-62).
This conclusion was supported by most of the Egyptologists publishing after
Harris. Steadily, a few dissenting voices proposed the reading bjA, e.g. Lalouette
(1979), lately Herslund (2011, 2015), and most recently Odler (2023, pp. 67-83).
Reading bjA as copper, nevertheless, is complicated by the rich semantic connec-
tions of the word, representing also other metals, most frequently iron, and even
other non-metal materials, such as fossilized wood (Almansa-Villatoro, 2019;
Graefe, 1971). The crux of the questions revolves around the real-world iden-
tification of the hieroglyphic sign N34 and its various specific forms, which has
been repeatedly demonstrated to be a crucible (Claes, Davey & Hendrickx, 2019;
Herslund, 2015; Odler, 2023). If it denotes metal, I have argued at length that it
should be read bjA; if it denotes an artefact, the crucible itself, I proposed the
reading bDA.t, feminine form of the word bDA for various moulds, including bread
moulds (Odler, 2023, pp. 67-83). Different opinions on its reading might endure,
nevertheless, as they are based on long research traditions.
Hieratic writing of the sign provides further context. More detailed versions
of the N34 sign, with higher number of strokes, likely renders the crucible on
fire with a tuyère. At the same time, simpler versions, a combination of a hor iz-
ontal pen stroke on the base and vertical stroke in the middle, above the horizon-
tal line were used (Odler, 2023, pp. 92-94, figs. 31, 38). And already G. Möller
illustrated in his hieratic palaeography that the hieratic signs N34 for “crucible”
and U28 for “fire-drill” were written with similar number and directions of
strokes (see fig. 1). Some scribes omitted the smaller strokes, also rendering the
crucible, and thus the signs were written identically, with two pen strokes only
(Möller, 1909, p. 37: sign 391, 56: 589). The simpler writing is ubiquitous, e.g.
in the papyrus Reisner II, where the sign group bjA was used constantly and thus
the scribe was saving time in rendering again and again this oft-repeated word
(Simpson, 1965). On figure 1, New Kingdom’s hieratic examples of the writing,
as gathered by Möller (1909), are represented.
Therefore, the frequently used and read group DA, featured in the words for
crucible and mould, bDA and bDA.t, as well as the profession of metalworker bDA.
ty, was pars pro toto represented actually by a form of the sign U28 (see fig. 1).
N. Davies and A. Gardiner translated this word as a “fire-stick apparatus”/“fire-
drill”. It is known only from the Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (Golenischeff,
1908; Spiegelberg, 1923; Ungnad, 1906) and then from the papyrus Brooklyn
47.218.84, from the reign of Psammetichus I in Dynasty 26 (Meeks, 2006).
Never theless, in papyrus Reisner II (and elsewhere), numerous occurrences of
the sign can be clearly translated as bjA.
— 146 —
In case of Hsmn metal, the sign U32, representing mortar and pestle in this
sign group, has an established reading since Erman (1892). Here, the semantic
field is again wider: the same word denotes and is translated as both “natron”
and “amethyst”. In most cases, the particular word group and meaning of the
specific named material category, which was intended by ancient Egyptians, can
be identified by the determinatives of the specific sign groups. Harris discussed
both bjA and Hsmn as separate categories; let us revisit his argumentation and the
publications on which it was built.
Harris’ Predecessors and his Arguments
Arguments of Richard Lepsius, interconnecting Hsmn and iron are for long
and justifiably antiquated (Lepsius, 1872). In the same year, François Chabas
reached different conclusions, comparing the occurrences and the artefacts prod-
uced out of the bjA and Hsmn sign-group. Chabas stated that both are “deux
variantes du même mot”, which can be translated as either copper or bronze
(Chabas, 1872, p. 50). Published white and red colours of the objects made of
Hsmn led also Swedish Egyptologist Karl Piehl to doubt Lepsius’ translation as
“iron” (Piehl, 1890, p. 19). Further reassessment, albeit not followed by others,
came from Gsell (1910, pp. 51-52), who proposed that Hsmn was “zinnbronze
oder bronze im allgemeinen”, while Hmt (in this text read as bjA) could have been
brass.
But the final author to reject Lepsius and propose reading of Hsmn and the
translation as bronze was Adolf Erman (1892). His paper remained the main
reference point until Harris, as he stressed “since Erman’s article, Hsmn has gen-
erally been translated bronze, […] and there can scarcely be any doubt that this
is correct” (Harris, 1961, p. 63). Although the reading of metal Hsmn as such was
established by Ludwig Stern, noticing the same determinative U32 in the writing
of the material “natron” (Ebers & Stern, 1875). Erman (1892, p. 32) simply sup-
ported this reading. The different reading of material Hsmn as metal was iden-
tified because it occurs in the materials’ listings among other metals, where nei-
ther the meaning “natron”, nor the meaning “amethyst” was appropriate. Erman
mentioned again Piehl’s argument (1890) about the artefacts of white and red
colouring. The specific artefacts — signet rings, vessels and temple furniture, as
well as weapons — pointed for Erman in the direction of “bronze”, rather than
iron. Erman even consulted the matter with Swedish archaeologist Oscar Mon-
telius, who was of the same opinion. In the end of the article, he cited iron rings
of the Late Bronze Age from Mycenae, but neither earlier rings, nor iron vessels
of the 2nd millennium BC were known to him (Erman, 1892, p. 35), thus iron as
a translation seemed unlikely.
As Harris observed in the evidence, Hsmn appears more often before bjA, and
seldom after it. The determinative for the word Hsmn was a “crucible”, sign N34,
— 147 —
denoting semantic closeness to the bjA group, and confirming that a metal melted
in crucibles was meant. In the Middle Kingdom medical Papyrus Ramesseum V,
more usually used bjA group in medical texts, was in a word collocation of “scrap
metal” replaced by Hsmn (Lefebvre, 1958). Again, this signified closeness of the
words and metals, and at times its mutual replaceability, also for Harris.
Writing of HsmnHsmn as Metal in Detail
The mentions of the metal
Hsmn are gathered on figures 2
and 3, and the sources of the
writing are listed in table 1.
For the periods before the
New Kingdom, they are based
on Odler (2023, fig. 34),
where a complete listing of all
mentions was attempted. For
the New Kingdom and Late
Period, gathered evidence is
based on what J. R. Harris
used to support his arguments
about the identification of
Hsmn. An attempt was made to
add further mentions from
Urkunden, which Harris omit-
ted. But there might be refer-
ences in the literature that
escaped my attention.
Selected
sources published after Harris
(1961) are discussed in a sep-
arate chapter, although included
in both figures.
The aim was
not to find the exact form of
the hieroglyphs in all cases; if
published, the renderings by
Sethe’s handwriting from
Urkunden provide enough
evid ence of the presence of
specific hieroglyphs in the
words’ writing and distinction
of the use of either N34 or
U32.
Fig. 2. — Mentions of the metal Hsmn before the New
Kingdom, updated after Odler (2023, fig. 34).
Old Kingdom
Middle Kingdom
Second Intermediate Period
— 148 —
Fig. 3. — Mentions of the metal Hsmn in the New Kingdom and Late Period, based on Harris
(1961), updated with other mentions in the Urkunden (Blumenthal et al., 1984; Cumming, 1982,
1984a,b; Helck, 1957, 1961; Sethe, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1914).
— 149 —
The metal Hsmn is either listed among other metals, or, more frequently, as a
substance from which certain types of the artefacts are made. It is impossible to
make a frequency statistics out of rather limited mentions, but certain preferences
of writing can be identified in specific periods and in particular text genres.
The main categories of writing the metal Hsmn are clear from figures 2 and 3.
The briefest form has only the sign U32 of a pestle with mortar, either with three
mineral signs or a mineral sign and three plural strokes (fig. 2: d, e, f, l, m?; fig. 3:
u-ee, ll-nn, pp, qq). The longer versions contain both the sign U32 and a crucible
N34, either before or after the sign U32. If it is located after U32 (fig. 3: n, ff-hh,
oo, ss-bbb), N34 likely served only as a determinative, narrowing down the categ-
orization of the sign into the compartment of a “metal” (Herslund, 2011). Accor-
ding to our current understanding of hieroglyphs, if the N34 would come before
U32 (fig. 2: h-k; fig. 3: o-s), the whole group would be read as bjA Hsmn, Hsmn
serving as an adjective of the broader “metal” or “copper” word. This use is anal-
ogical to a similar case of the so-called “Asiatic copper” (Posener-Kriéger, 1969)
and the “black copper” (Giumlia-Mair & Quirke, 1997). Then, there are a few
peculiar cases, when the word Hsmn was inscribed also by other phonetic signs
(fig. 2: a, b, g). Two of these writings are datable to the Old Kingdom, thus they
might reflect early, non-standardized rendering of the word. By the reign of Amen-
emhat II in Dynasty 12, the writing appears to be established in the official version
of annals as bjA Hsmn. This “classic” writing will reappear at times also in the New
Kingdom, and, intriguingly, even in the Dynasty-25 sources (fig. 3: aaa, bbb).
Unless new Early Dynastic or Old Kingdom texts are uncovered, it thus seems
that the writing of the metal was not established normatively in the Old King-
dom, similarly as the word for metal DH.t / dH.t, which could be either tin or lead
(Harris, 1961, pp. 67-68). It also shared the same sign for mortar with Hsmn, thus
it is represented on figure 2: c, h (furthest on right side), and was most probably
connected in the perception of ancient Egyptians to Hsmn. The version esta-
blished in the annals of Amenemhat II represents Hsmn as a semantically subor-
dinate category to the wider one of bjA. But gradually, Hsmn came to be written
also as a standalone metal, even if sometimes determined by the N34, a crucible.
— 150 —
Table 1
Mentions of the material Hsmn as metal in Egyptian Bronze Age (abbreviations: OK = Old Kingdom; MK = Middle Kingdom; SIP = Second Intermediate
Period; NK = New Kingdom; LP = Late Period; D = Dynasty)
Figures
2, 3 Site Structure / text Period Locus Artefact Reference
aAbu Ghurab Sun temple of Nyuserre OK, D 5, reign of
Nyuserre
Festival Offerings Calendar
of the sun temple of Nyu-
serre, inscription A, “Große
Festdarstellung”. Block 247
Nemset vessel
Kees (1928, taf. 28: block
427); Posener-Kriéger
(1969, p. 422, fig. 3); Her-
slund (2011, p. 46)
bSaqqara
Mastaba XIV: tomb of
Khabaukhnum, called Bau
OK, D 6, reign of
Pepy II
Washing set of spouted
jar and wash basin
Jéquier (1940, p. 65, pl. 55)
cSaqqara Biography of Iny OK, D 6, reign of
Pepy II Dh.t material Marcolin & Diego Espi-
nel (2011)
dElephantine Heqaib sanctuary MK, D 11, reign of
Mentuhotep II
Stela 9: x + 18 Offering vessels (wdHw)Franke (1994, p. 157,
taf. I: 18)
eHeliopolis Fragment of Annals of
Senusret I
MK, D 12, reign of
Senusret I
Heset and aperet vessels
Altenmüller (2015, p. 206);
Postel & Régen (2005,
pp. 235-276, figs. 5-6)
fTod Inscription of Senusret I MK, D 12, reign of
Senusret I
Column 25 Vessels Barbotin & Clère (1991,
p. 9, fig. 1, col. 25)
gUnknown Unknown MK, D 12, reign of
Senusret I
New sealing
https://www.britishmuseum.
org/collection/object/Y_
EA586
hMemphis Temple of Ptah, Annals of
Amenemhat II
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
M5, M6 Censers of Hsmn and
copper
Altenmüller (2015)
hMemphis Temple of Ptah, Annals of
Amenemhat II
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
M27 Vessels and censer arm Altenmüller (2015)
hMemphis Temple of Ptah, Annals of
Amenemhat II
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
M16, M17, M18, M19,
M20
Razors, chisels, knives,
saws, daggers, sickles,
axes, spears of two types
Altenmüller (2015)
— 151 —
iMemphis Temple of Ptah, Annals of
Amenemhat II
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
M21
Mirror of Hsmn, gold and
ivory; daggers of Hsmn,
gold and silver; daggers
of Hsmn and ivory
Altenmüller (2015)
jAbydos Temple of Osiris, stela of
Mentuhotep
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
Gifts of copper and
Hsmn “without end”
Lange & Schäfer (1908,
p. 155, taf. 42)
kMemphis Temple of Ptah, Annals of
Amenemhat II
MK, D 12, reign of
Amenemhat II
Farag fragment Axe “opener of ways”
is bjA Hsmn
Altenmüller (2015); Odler
(2023, fig. 276)
lKarnak Second stela of Kamose SIP, D 17, reign of
Kamose
Battle axes Habachi (1972, p. 37,
fig. 23)
mEdfu Stela of Khonsemwaset
(Cairo, JdE 38917)
SIP, D 16 or D 17,
reign of Dedumose
Line 5 Collar made of gold and
Hsmn
El-Sayed (1979, pp. 168-
170, pl. : line 5)
nQurna TT 285 (Tomb of Iny) NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep I
Urk IV, 54 Unknown Sethe (1914, pp. 28-29)
oDra Abu en-Naga Tomb TT 11 of Djehuty,
overseer of the treasury,
overseer of works, “Nor-
thampton Stela”
NK, D 18, reign of
Hatshepsut
Urk IV, 423 and 425 Door inlays Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 65)
pKarnak Texte de la Jeunesse NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 170 Door inlay, on it king’s
name in gold
Sethe (1914, p. 81)
qKarnak Texte de la Jeunesse NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 168 Part of temple door Sethe (1914, p. 80)
rKarnak Texte de la Jeunesse NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 172 Milk vessels of silver,
gold, Hsmn
Sethe (1914, p. 82)
sKarnak Texte de la Jeunesse NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 173 Vessels of silver, gold,
Hsmn and copper
Sethe (1914, p. 82)
tAbydos Temple of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 204 Vessels Sethe (1914, p. 96)
uAbydos Temple of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 206 Vessels Sethe (1914, p. 97)
— 152 —
vKarnak Dedications to Amun NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 639-640 Altar and vessels Blumenthal et al. (1984,
pp. 185-186)
wKarnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 664 Battle tunics Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 195); Redford (2003,
p. 35, fig. 4, col. 97)
xKarnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 667 Vessels Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 197); Redford (2003,
p. 38, fig. 4, col. 102)
yKarnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 686 Vessels
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 202); Redford (2003,
pp. 38, 41, fig 10, col. 5)
zKarnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 705 Weaponry Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 210); Redford (2003,
p. 79, fig. 8, col. 34)
aa Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 711 Helmets and battle
tunics
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
pp. 212-213)
bb Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 718-719 Battle tunics Redford (2003)
cc Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 722 Axes Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 218)
dd Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 726-727 Battle tunics, swords
with axes, spears
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 220); Redford (2003,
fig. 10, col. 5)
absent Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 738 Tips of flagposts Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 224)
ee Karnak Annals of Thutmose III NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 744 Listing of metals, black
copper, Hsmn, copper as
offerings for Amun
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 227); Redford (2003,
p. 139)
ff Semna Temple inscription NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 817 Libation vessels made
of silver, gold, Hsmn and
Asiatic copper
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 266)
— 153 —
gg Wadi Halfa Stela for temple at Wadi
Halfa
NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 821 Statue made of elec-
trum, silver, Hsmn and
Asiatic copper
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 268)
hh Karnak Statue of Neferperet NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 1020 Vessels Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 391)
ii Armant Blocks from temple of
Thutmose III
NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 1249 Gates Mond & Myers (1940, pl.
C: 7)
jj Qurna TT 82 (stela in the tomb
of Amenemhat)
NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 1046 Vessels made of silver,
(gold), copper and Hsmn
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 407)
kk Qurna TT 82 (stela in the tomb
of Amenemhat)
NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 1047 Statues made of copper
and Hsmn
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 408)
ll Qurna Tomb TT 75 of Amenho-
tep, Son of Sa, second
prophet of Amun
NK, D 18, reign of
Thutmose III
Urk IV, 1213 Listing of materials
worked in workshops
Davies (1923); Blumen-
thal et al. (1984, p. 495)
mm Qurna TT 85, biography of
Amenemhab
NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep II
Urk IV, 891 13 bronze axes, plated
with gold
Blumenthal et al. (1984,
p. 311)
nn Amada Stela from Amada and
Elephantine of Amenho-
tep II
NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep II
Urk IV, 1296 Vessels, silver and Hsmn Helck (1961, p. 31);
Cumming (1982, p. 27);
Der Manuelian (1987,
pp. 47-51)
nn Elephantine Stela from Amada and
Elephantine of Amenho-
tep II
NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep II
Urk IV, 1296 Vessels, silver and Hsmn Helck (1961, p. 31);
Cumming (1982, p. 27);
Der Manuelian (1987,
pp. 47-51)
Figure 4 Qurna Tomb TT 93 of Qenamun NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep II
Urk IV, 1393
Weapons: daggers/knives
and throwsticks
Davies, Hopgood &
Davies (1930, pl. );
Cumming (1984b, p. 102)
oo Qurna Tomb TT 95 of Mery, first
prophet of Amun
NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep II
Urk IV, 1571
Listing of materials, from
which craftworks are
produced
Helck (1961, p. 157)
— 154 —
pp Karnak Third Pylon of Amun
temple, Building inscrip-
tion of Amenhotep III
NK, D 18, reign of
Amenhotep III
Urk IV, 1728 (Harris has
mistakenly 1729)
Listing of metals Helck (1961, p. 230)
qq Qasr Ibrim Stela of the viceroy User-
satet, MFA Boston 25.632
NK, D 18, reign of
Tutankhamun
Urk IV, 1344 Battle axe of electrum
with Hsmn hafting =
“thongs”
Helck (1961, p. 50); Cum-
ming (1982, pp. 45-46);
Darnell (2014, pp. 253,
255)
rr Karnak Restoration stela of
Tutankhamun
NK, D 18, reign of
Tutankhamun
CG 34183, 18 Listing of metals as
offerings
Legrain (1907, p. 165);
Harris (1961, p. 64)
ss Unknown Papyrus BM 10068 NK, D 19 and D 20 Papyrus BM 10068, recto,
pp. 2, 19 Vessel, kb-vase Peet (1930, p. 88)
tt Unknown Papyrus BM 10068 NK, D 19 and D 20 Papyrus BM 10068, recto,
pp. 2, 29
Vessel, spit-bowl Peet (1930, p. 89)
uu Unknown Papyrus BM 10068 NK, D 19 and D 20 Papyrus BM 10068, recto,
p. 6
Vessels Peet (1930, p. 92)
vv Valley of the Kings Ostracon CG 25509 NK, D 19, reign of
Sethi II
Pick, ḫꜢ and mḏꜢ.t chisel ,
)
ww Medinet Habu Papyrus Harris I / Great
Harris Papyrus
NK, D 20, reign of
Ramesse IV
41a, 11 Metal Grandet (1994, pp. 74,
126)
xx Unknown Papyrus Mayer B NK, D 20, reign of
Ramesse X
Papyrus Mayer B Bracelet, vessels of
Hsmn; bed and vessels
of copper
Peet (1920, p. 20)
yy Unknown Papyrus BM 10053 NK, D 20 Papyrus BM 10053, recto,
p. 4
Mirror Peet (1930, p. 107)
zz Unknown Papyrus Turin PR 102,
magical text
NK, D 20 Pl. , l. 14 Mountain
Rossi & Pleyte (1869,
pp. 189, 247, pl. 14)
aaa Karnak Inscription of Montuem-
hat
Late Period, D 25,
reign of Taharqa
Listing of offerings in
various metals
Mariette (1875, pl. 42: 16)
bbb Gebel Barkal Victory stela of Piye /
Piankhi
Late Period, D 25,
reign of Piye
Urk III, 1-56, line 57 Listing of metals as
gifts
Schäfer (1905, pp. , 20,
line 57)
— 155 —
Lists containing HsmnHsmn as Metal
The most numerous writings of Hsmn as a standalone metal are datable to the
reign of Thutmose III (Cline & O’Connor, 2006; Redford, 2003), which is just
a coincidence caused by accidental preservation of the texts. It does not mean
that the frequency of use of Hsmn was higher in this particular reign. The writing
from the early reign of Thutmose III, so-called Texte de la Jeunesse (Laskowski,
2006, p. 184), is peculiar to the New Kingdom, the metal is written as bjA Hsmn
(fig. 3: p-s). In the diligent listings of artefacts and materials in the Annals of
Thutmose III and associated dedications to Amun (Laskowski, 2006, pp. 199-
201; Redford, 2003), the shortest version of the writing of the metal was chosen,
with solely two signs (fig. 3: v-ee). @smn was listed after black copper and
before copper in the offerings brought to the god Amun and Amun temple by the
king. Each entry in the list was clearly ended by the sign of three mineral pellets
(fig. 3: ee). But, for example, temple inscription from Semna opted for a longer
version with added N34 sign as a determinative (fig. 3: ff), as well as the stela
from Wadi Halfa (fig. 3: gg).
The building inscription of Amenhotep III listed black copper, Hsmn, and cop-
per, as reconstructed by Sethe (fig. 3: pp). The restoration stela of Tutankhamun
from Karnak temple listed Hsmn and copper (fig. 3: rr). This writing was pre-
served also in the material for vessels in the list from the early reign of Amen-
hotep IV / Akhenaten (Saad & Manniche, 1971, p. 71, pl. ), which was pub-
lished after Harris could take it into consideration.
Similar records were present in private tombs, e.g. at Qurna, in the tomb of
Amenhotep, son of Sa, second prophet of Amun in the reign of Thutmose III.
@smn was here reconstructed by Sethe, recognizable is copper and “copper from
the (foreign) hilly land” (fig. 3: ll), among the materials worked in the Amun
temple workshops. Another list, with Hsmn, black copper, and copper from the
hills occurred in the tomb of Mery, first prophet of Amun in the reign of Amen-
hotep II (Der Manuelian, 1987, pp. 106-107), within the context of the inspec-
tion of the Amun temple workshop:
Inspecting the workshops of the temple of Amun and the working procedures
of all (kinds of) craftsmanship in silver, gold, lapis lazuli, turquoise, bronze,
black copper and raw copper which his Majesty offered to his father Amun, lord
of the thrones of the Two Lands, (pre-eminent in) Karnak, by the prince and
count and first prophet of Amun, Mery, justified (Cumming, 1984b, p. 271).
The reason of such listing is clear, it represents all the main minerals and
metals processed in the workshops (
fig.
3: oo).
The same use is evidenced by the inscription from the reign of Taharqa from
Karnak (fig. 3: aaa) and the victory stela of Piye from Gebel Barkal (fig. 3: bbb).
The Karnak inscription, commissioned by Montuemhat, spoke about the restora-
tions in the Karnak temple after the incursion of Assyrians. In the victory stela,
— 156 —
Hsmn is among the material tribute brought to Piye by Nimlot, king of Khenemu,
for his treasury. Although R. Morkot opted for a translation as “copper”, Hsmn
was clearly written here (Morkot, 2000, pp. 187-188). Intriguingly, both monu-
mental inscriptions return to the “traditional” form of writing, with N34 sign as
a determinative.
Artefacts made of HsmnHsmn
The objects produced out of Hsmn are predominantly vessels. Others represent
door cladding, statuary, offering tables, mirrors, and a few other specific objects.
But by far, the most numerous artefacts produced from Hsmn in the lists were the
vessels. They appeared for the first time in the Old Kingdom (fig. 2: a, b) and
continued in the Middle Kingdom (fig. 2: d, e, f, h). Nevertheless, the largest
corpus of the mentions of Hsmn is datable to a single reign of Thutmose III. It is
impossible to discuss each and every occurrence of the vessels in the annals and
dedications of this king. But for illustration, even milking vessels for cows were
made of silver, gold and Hsmn (fig. 3: r).
Provenance of the objects could have been from the royal storage (fig. 3: jj, kk):
The vizier Useramun made a large withdrawal from the royal house (per
nesu), consisting of […] silver and bronze vessels, […] Vizier Useramun made
numerous statues for the royal house consisting of silver, bronze, ebony […]
(Bryan, 2006, p. 73).
A milk jar of Hsmn (fig. 3: hh) was part of the booty that royal butler Nefer-
peret brought from the Levant and dedicated to the mortuary temple of Thutmose
III (Bryan, 2006, p. 95), i.e. clearly an artefact of a foreign provenance and
production.
Sometimes the combination of materials was described, as Thutmose III
recorded the doors to the Amun temple, made of cedar wood, covered with Hsmn,
and the royal name on it in gold (fig. 3: p). On the “Northampton” stela, Djehuti
wrote too about the doors of cedar covered with Hsmn (fig. 3: o). Monuments
like these in the biography of Djehuti appear to have been mentioned also in
other biographies of the era (Bryan, 2006, p. 86; Shirley, 2014, pp. 195-198).
Harris argued that in the New Kingdom, bronze would be preferably used e.g.
for weapons and tools. However, a detailed look at the evidence demonstrates a
low frequency of this metal for either of the artefactual categories in the texts
themselves. The only New Kingdom exception listing Hsmn as a metal of tools is
the late New Kingdom ostracon CG 25509 from the Valley of the Kings, a list of
entries for fifty-eight days of work on the tomb of King Sethi II, dated to his first
regnal year. Among the tools listed are xA and mDA.t chisels and qrDn stone-mason
qrDn, is some-
times translated as an “axe”, but the evaluation of all written sources on axes rather
points to the correct translation as a “stone-working tool”, likely a heavy metal
— 157 —
pick (Davies, 1987, pp. 68-69, tab. D). These are all tools that would be expectedly
made of tin bronze in the New Kingdom and represent clearly a stone-working
tool kit. But, in much larger part of the inscribed ostraca corpus from Deir el-
Medina, apart from another dubious case, scribes of Deir el-Medina tended to
prefer the word bjA, when denoting the metal for tools (Valbelle, 1977, p. 15).
In case of weapons and body armour, they are systematically named as made
of Hsmn, especially in the Annals of Thutmose III (Redford, 2003) and in a few
other texts, where battle axes were mentioned, the best-known being the second
stela of King Kamose (fig. 2: l) (Habachi, 1972). The only other source is the wall
painting from the tomb of Qenamun (Davies et al., 1930, pl. ; see also fig. 4),
and as translated by B. Cumming: “d. Bronze 140. (This refers to swords) e.
Bronze 20. (This refers to throwsticks with heads of cranes) f. Of gold, ivory and
ebony, 220 whips, Of Bronze, 60 scimitars” (Cumming, 1984a, p. 102). Qenamun
was king’s chief steward during the reign of Amenhotep II and accompanied the
king to the Levant (Der Manuelian, 1987, pp. 159-160). This is conspicuously the
only occurrence of a Hsmn weaponry in a private Theban tomb of a high official.
Another one, from the same reign, is on a royal stela.
In a letter of Amenhotep II to the Nubian viceroy Usersatet, presumably
reflecting colloquial use of language (Der Manuelian, 1987, pp. 154-158), a
proverb was mentioned, as translated by Darnell: “For lack of battle axe of fine
gold, the hafting of bronze, the one tisw-staff is reliable in the place of the flood,
Fig. 4. — Detail of the decoration and inscriptions from the tomb TT 93 of Qenamun with artefacts
made of Hsmn (drawing after Davies et al., 1930, pl. ).
— 158 —
the other (is reliable) in the bar-water of acacia” (Cumming, 1982, pp. 45-46;
Darnell, 2014, pp. 253, 255). The word jqHw is specifically used for battle axes
(Davies, 1987, p. 67). The elaborate axe can be read as a reference to the weap-
ons held by the king or provided by the king to the viceroy, and metaphorically
to the king himself, Amenhotep II (Darnell, 2014, pp. 265-268). The selection of
the referred metal (fig. 3: qq) thus points to the royal context and to the provision
of an axe specimen made of precious material (Focke, 2013).
However, these are all mentions available of the Hsmn as the metal used for
New Kingdom’s weapons. A letter from Dynasty 20 even states clearly that dag-
gers and battle axes were made of copper, although this already counts among
the texts that were unknown to Harris at the time of the publication of his book.
Ancient Texts published after Harris (1961)
The most important newly-found and published ancient text with mentions of
Hsmn are the fragments of the Annals of Amenemhat II from Memphis (Alten-
müller, 2015; Altenmüller & Moussa, 1991). In them, the metal is usually written
as bjA Hsmn, specific category of the metal bjA, “copper”. The objects made of
this metal are numerous, referred to in table 1, they were from the booty from
the towns Iwai and Iasy and from the trade/exchange with Lebanon, as well as
tools and temple ritual tools, again especially vessels (Altenmüller, 2015, p. 207).
The translation assumed by Altenmüller is “bronze”, equating the word with
Hebrew xašmal and Akkadian ešmaru. And of the targets of the military, or rather
pirate raid of the towns of Iwai and Iasy, is supposed to be Cyprus (Altenmüller,
2015, pp. 300-306). Recent analyses of the Early and Middle Bronze Age met-
alwork from Cyprus demonstrated presence of both arsenical copper/bronze and
tin bronze in the Middle Bronze Age contexts, each alloy used for specific object
categories (Charalambous & Webb, 2020; Webb, Frankel, Stos & Gale, 2006).
But not exclusively, thus under the label of bjA Hsmn in the annals might be both
arsenical copper and tin bronze, as well as an intermediate group of tin bronze
with arsenic. Therefore, trying a translation by a single word in a modern lan-
guage might be misleading, or outright futile.
Recent publication of the late New Kingdom notebook of Dhutmose, appar-
ently originating from Deir el-Medina, has led me to question the pervasive use
of Hsmn in the New Kingdom. This source was not available for instance to
Harris and could not play any role in Egyptological debates before its discovery.
Even though most of the entries deal with the production and transactions with
the objects that were predominantly made of tin bronze in the New Kingdom,
the sign used is a simple form of N34/U28 most of the time, with just two excep-
tions of U32 (Hölzl et al., 2018; Müller, 2020) (for the detailed list see table 2).
The Notebook of Dhutmose was used for almost everything made of metal,
— 159 —
“copper”, N34/U28 sign, and we can observe how its writing can differ even with
a single scribal hand (fig. 5).
Another New Kingdom’s source is also from personal archive. Bronze vessel
of g Ay type (Janssen, 1975, pp. 426-428), worth two and half shatys, rings, fig-
ured in the transaction in papyrus Berlin 9784, not mentioned by Harris (Gar-
diner, 1908, pp. 31-32). The entry is dated to Year 3 of the reign of Amenhotep
IV and is a purchase of two-day service of a female slave (Muhs, 2016, p. 130).
Since the transaction was performed by the herder Mesi, and the doc ument is
from his personal archive, it gives an interesting information about the distribu-
tion of bronze vessels and their value. Janssen equates the listed weight of the
vessel with 21 2/3 deben, which would represent in New Kingdom’s deben
weight of ca. 2 kg, i.e. a rather substantial artefact (Janssen, 1975, p. 428).
Curiously, a letter from the reign of Dynasty-20 Ramesse IX lists as metal of
the production of knives and axes copper, while a vessel is mentioned as made
of Hsmn (Helck, 1967, p. 143; Janssen, 1975, p. 408). It is so-called Text D,
which, with Text C, are letters of the high priest of Amun at Karnak, Rames-
senakht, to the troops of Nubians, sent to defend against enemies, perhaps in the
Eastern Desert (Muhs, 2016, p. 135). Ramessenakht lists provisions, and among
those are twenty-five bronze vessels, twenty-five knives and five axes. The word
for knife, sft, would rather indicate slaughtering or food-processing knife, and
originally would denote a lithic artefact, but could less probably also mean
“sword” or “dagger” (Herslund, 2011, pp. 124-125; Janssen, 1975, p. 324).
Although the word mjnb was used for axe, usual in context of the artisan and
peaceful application as a tool, Davies opted for a translation of “battle axe” here
(Davies, 1987, p. 66). Since twenty-five specimens of linen shirts and other
pieces of textile were sent, as well as a number of vessels, the provisions were
clearly for a troop of twenty-five men. Only five of them were given axes, nev-
ertheless. Although we can presume that such artefacts would have been made
of (tin) bronze in the late New Kingdom, copper is written down here. In other
words, the ancient sources are less precise than we wish them to be in naming
of the materials and metals specifically, even in the New Kingdom. Let us step
further away and look at the broader picture.
Fig. 5. — Examples of different writings of the sign N34 for bjA metal, all by a single scribe Dhut-
mose from Dynasty 20 (drawn after Hölzl et al., 2018).
— 160 —
Table 2
Mentions of metal artefacts in the Notebook of Dhutmose (use of “bronze” specifically indicated;
the rest of artefacts is indicated to be made of copper)
Locus Source of metal Recycled into
Reference
Recto, col. 2-3 Tools (22 deben), spear
(1 deben), spike (1 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, pp. 13-14,
pl. 2, 3)
Recto, col. 8 Altar (12 deben) + 4 other
deben
Spouted jar (2 deben),
wash basin (7 deben),
pole-end (4 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, p. 16,
pl. 6)
Recto, col. 9 Door of the slaughterhouse
(16 deben)
Spear (1 deben), spear
(5 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, pp. 16-17,
pl. 7)
Recto, col. 11 Door of pr-mstr? (? deben) Spear (4 deben) Hölzl et al. (2018, p. 18,
pl. 9)
Recto, col. 12-13 Second door (31 deben) nty chisel (1 deben),
spear (1 deben); adze
(1 deben), axe (5 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, pp. 18-19,
pl. 10-11)
Verso, col. 1 Adze (3 deben) Hölzl et al. (2018, p. 19,
pl. 12)
Verso, col. 2-3 38 deben Spear (6 deben), drinking
cup (6 deben), wash basin
+ 2 spears (10 deben),
wash basin not made
(7 deben), 2 spears half-
made (7 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, p. 20,
pl. 13-14)
Verso, col. 4 Spear (1 deben), spear
(3 deben), spear (1 deben)
Hölzl et al. (2018, pp. 20-21,
pl. 15)
Verso, col. 5-7 Bronze: 1 kb-vase, 2 qrHt-
vases with base-ring,
2 mnty-bowls (?), 2 big mir-
rors, 1 small, total 3, 1 big
razor, 1 small, total 10
Hölzl et al. (2018, pp. 21-24,
pl. 5-7)
Verso, col. 7a Of bronze: 1 Tbw-vase
makes 5 deben, 1 knife
makes 1 1/2 deben, 12 deben
scrap copper
Hölzl et al. (2018, p. 24,
pl. 19)
What Sort of Bronze?
Due to the scarcity of tin bronze before the New Kingdom, Harris assumed
that the distinction between copper and tin bronze might not have been perceived
clearly in the Middle Kingdom. The highest number of mentions of Hsmn were
from the New Kingdom; therefore in the sources of this dating, it could refer to
(tin) bronze. The prevalence of tin bronze in the New Kingdom was, indeed,
confirmed by several independent archaeometallurgical studies of the contem-
porary artefactual evidence, although arsenical copper seldom occurs as well
(Odler & Kmošek, 2020; Rademakers, Rehren & Pernicka, 2017; Rademakers et
— 161 —
al., 2023; Stos-Gale, Gale & Houghton, 1995). But the question remains: what
sort of bronze was represented by Hsmn?
Fundamental terminological imprecision exists among the fields of Egyptology,
archaeology and archaeometallurgy. The problem arises because of the term “Bronze
Age”, without specifying the term “Bronze”. Most Egyptologists and archaeologists
understand that the term “bronze” usually means “tin bronze”, but this is for the
understanding of archaeometallurgists. The word “bronze” requires further and more
precise qualification, as tin bronze is only one of the possible results of alloying two
or multiple metals together with copper being the base metal. Material with inten-
tionally added arsenic ought to be called arsenical bronze, for example, and leaded
tin bronze could have been used for the production of statuary and vessels. Just a
fraction of Egyptologists and a supposedly slightly larger group of archaeologists
realize this terminological vagueness. The imprecision causes a problematic overall
framing of the “Bronze Age”, where the advent of the “proper” (tin) bronze is treated
as a technological advancement, while the use of arsenical copper/bronze is seen in
such narrative as a technological “dead-end” or of no importance at all (Kienlin,
2016). The question of what sort of bronze must be answered within the constraints
of both the emic perception of the past culture and etic perception of the current
scientific discourse. For Bronze Age metallurgy, this was studied for instance by
Kuijpers (2018a,b) and Mödlinger, Kuijpers, Braekmans & Berger (2017), who have
defined categories of the alloys that could have been perceived by ancient craftsper-
sons and ancient people in general. Such general categories can be sought for in the
vocabularies of ancient languages, e.g. ancient Egyptian. But if we are unable to be
precise in our contemporary language and texts produced in different fields of
humanities and sciences, why should we expect the material naming precision from
ancient scribes? They might have had equally superficial and imprecise ideas about
the metal alloying processes or the resulting metals.
Generally, we can observe major trends across the Chalcolithic, Early, Middle and
Late Bronze Age, as described initially by Eaton & McKerrell (1976), based on the
collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. In the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze
Age the most frequent metal is arsenical copper/bronze. In the Middle Bronze Age,
up to half of the analysed artefacts is represented by tin bronze, the other ones being
usually of copper, or still of arsenical copper/bronze. In the Late Bronze Age, the
major alloy is tin bronze, yet the knowledge and production of arsenical copper/
bronze was not lost, as such artefacts continue to occur, albeit infrequently. While the
big picture is clear, large datasets, produced for example by McKerrell (1971) and
Riederer (1978) need to be reassessed and recontextualized with the original archaeo-
logical contexts in which they were found and could be dated. Then we can compre-
hend the local differences within the major lines of development.
I have proposed recently the translation of Hsmn as arsenical copper with higher
contents of arsenic (Odler, 2023, pp. 87-89). The reasoning was led by the closeness
of the words for natron and amethyst. Natron is a carbonate mineral, white in colour,
although it may range from grey to yellow. Amethyst is a purple variety of quartz,
— 162 —
but when worked, it can be reduced into white powder. The appearance of arsenical
copper with c. 10 % of arsenic was a cool, whitish-grey colour. Copper alloys with
high arsenic were called “white coppers” in Mediaeval times, forming a specific
cognitive category of metals (Kuijpers, 2018b, p. 98). Yet, it is difficult to find
ancient Egyptian objects with such high contents of arsenic, the weight percentage
analysed is usually much lower, and that is the weakest point of my argumentation.
It is difficult to explain a connection between tin bronze, natron and amethyst,
three different material denotations of the likely same sounding word in ancient
Egyptian. The lexical connection among these three seemingly unrelated words
can be explained by referring to some of their perceptible properties. Among the
most likely, but also the most disputable ones, could be presumed a colour. The
connection between natron and amethyst can be substantiated by the white colour
of some of their forms, but the “gold” hue of tin bronze is well known to the
present day and has nothing to do with white colour; nor does the colour of tin
minerals, especially cassiterite, which is grey or black.
The etymology of the word can be, nevertheless, connected to a different con-
cept, to the ritual cleansing. J. Cooper explains the etymology of the word Hsmn as
“to purify” (Cooper, 2020, p. 181). This word denoted also a spouted jar, type of
vessel named Hsmny, which was used in the purification, and thus being con-
sequently used for the metal of which some of these vessels were made (Hannig,
2003, p. 887; 2006, p. 1775). The concept of “cleansing” can be arguably earlier
than the use of metals, but our sources for the early religious rituals are simply
insufficient to make a strong case in one or the other direction, whether the material
or the vessel was named the first. And, after further deliberation, it seems likely
that lexicographical distinction between bjA and Hsmn was not at all clear cut.
Furthermore, their alloying element might be identified as another presumed
metal, DH.t / dH.t. In Dynasty 6, the material dH.t was chiselled out in the bio-
graphy of an official Iny (see fig. 2: c). Since the hieroglyphic sign for “pestle”,
U32, is the same as the one used for the writing of Hsmn, DH.t might have been
used in production of the Hsmn. And a similar writing, DH(.t), appeared later, in
the Middle Kingdom, in the Annals of Amenemhat II. The word DH.t is usually
translated as lead, but it might have also been confused with tin (Cooper, 2020,
pp. 203-204; Harris, 1961, pp. 67-68). Since the properties of tin and lead alloys
differ markedly, the metals were hardly confused by the metalworking specialists
who used the ores but could have been confused by the authors of the texts. The
mention of the material in the text of Iny denotes DH.t as being brought from
Byblos, presumably obtained from Ebla. But this could be both arsenic for arsen-
ical copper, tin for the tin bronze, or perhaps lead for leaded tin bronze, depend-
ing on what interpretation we choose. Evidence is insufficient for a final decision.
Harris’ argument that the colour of Hsmn was established to be “chestnut-brown”,
“marron” was at best misleading. Intriguingly, this is not the colouring of the true
tin bronze, which has gold-like appearance. To quote A. Hauptmann: “If the tin
contents are below 10 wt. %, then the bronzes are reddish to tombac coloured. If
— 163 —
they rise to >10 wt. %, bronzes are coloured orange to yellow-gold-like. This is the
usual colour of archaeological bronzes” (Hauptmann, 2020, p. 396), while in case
of arsenical bronze: “4-12 % of arsenic gives the alloy ‘golden tint’ (Hauptmann,
2020, p. 388). Gold-like hue of the practically used arsenical copper and tin bronzes
could have been virtually indistinguishable to the non-specialists, unacknowledged
with the metalworking recipes used to produce tools and weapons. Thus, the appar-
ent lack of distinction between bjA / Hsmn as arsenical copper and bjA / Hsmn as tin
bronze can be understood. Both arsenical copper and tin bronze could have been
subsumed under one term of Hsmn, especially in the Middle Bronze Age, when both
metals were used for specific artefacts. Just compare the parts of the original surface
of two mirrors from the Louvre collections, both having ca. 7 weight % of arsenic
(fig. 6) and tin (fig. 7) respectively (Vandier d’Abbadie & Michel, 1972; Vandier
d’Abbadie, 1972). Both have distinct, slightly “golden” hues of alloyed copper.
However, any substantial reassessment of the chemical composition in com-
parison to written sources is impossible for the earlier parts of the history of
Egypt and Nubia, as can be seen from the figure 8 with the total counts and
percentages of the already analysed artefacts. Many of these are, moreover, anti-
quated analyses from a century ago and need to be re-evaluated as well.
Fig. 6. — Dynasty-6 mirror disc from Edfu, Mastaba of Isi, Shaft XIX,
inv. no. E 25973, made of arsenical copper, with 7.5 weight % of arsenic and
1.06 weight % of antimony (according to Vandier d’Abbadie & Michel,
1972, cat. no. OT 781, 7). © 2004 Musée du Louvre / Christian Décamps.
— 164 —
Fig. 7. — Dynasty-18 mirror disc with handle from Deir el-Medina, tomb 1370 of Maya, inv.
no. E 14465, made of tin bronze, with 8.22 weight % of tin (according to Vandier d’Abbadie &
Michel, 1972, cat. no. OT 764, 20_1). © 2004 Musée du Louvre / Christian Décamps.
— 165 —
Fig. 8. — Total counts of the artefacts preserved from the Chalcolithic, Early and Middle Bronze Age Egypt and Nubia, with a subset of the artefacts already
analysed. The percentage of each artefact category is indicated. Edited version of fig. 138 from Odler (2023).
— 166 —
Another level of perception that is at play is the perception of colours, ancient
vs. modern. In case of copper alloys, the best-known case is of a “black copper”
(Giumlia-Mair & Quirke, 1997). But gold, silver, and its natural or intentional
mixing in electrum, could have exhibited a range of colours, e.g. for electrum
described as “… from pale yellow to greyish-white…” (Harris, 1961, p. 35). The
colour properties of ancient Egyptian gold can be understood only quite recently
based on sufficient analytical data (Guerra, 2023). Any comparisons of modern
vs. ancient perceptions run into risk of assuming something that might not have
been in the mind of the ancient user of the language and writing. Thus, again,
our conclusions must be based on a statistically representative number of anal-
yses, equally for gold, silver, and electrum, and this has hardly been the case so
far. Therefore, I cannot provide any definitive solution to the problems described
in the paper, only in the case of general categories used.
Distinction between bjAbjA and HsmnHsmn
The number of occurrences of Hsmn, rather low overall for the Bronze Age of
Egypt, might potentially even point to a rarer metal, perhaps, beyond arsenical
copper with high contents of arsenic, also arsenical copper with nickel. Only
statistically representative analyses of all preserved New Kingdom metal vessels
would provide us with a definitive answer on what alloys can be documented in
them, the most frequent artefacts named as made of Hsmn. And within the sphere
of the mundane papyri, for the practically used metal, in the New Kingdom “tin
bronze”, the word and sign bjA were used often instead of Hsmn, the categoriza-
tion of specific metals being blurred or unclear to some users of ancient Egyp-
tian. Thus, the term, as Harris wrote, “…includes both copper and bronze…”,
but not only for later periods, also for the Bronze Age Egypt, and stemming from
the use of the word since the Chalcolithic.
An explanation for the general categorization of Hsmn is provided by the
papyrus Mayer B (fig. 9), in which the interrogated tomb robbers, among others
metalworker Pentahutnakht, described what they looted and how they had split
it. The looted tomb was of King Ramesse VI, KV 9 in the Valley of the Kings,
while the papyrus itself is likely datable to the Year 9 of Ramesse IX (Peden,
1994, pp. 259-264). The categories are clear from the original English translation
by Peet, and thus could have been understood well since the 1920s:
We opened the tomb and we entered it. We found a basket (??) lying on sixty
… chests (?). We opened it. We found […] of hands, of bronze; a bracelet (?) of
bronze; three wash-bowls of bronze; a wash-bowl, a nw-vase (for) pouring water
over the hands, of bronze; two qb-vases of bronze; two pwnt-vases of bronze; a
qb-vase, a jnkr-vase […] of bronze; (12) three jrr-vases of bronze; eight beds of
ornamented copper; eight bAc-vases of copper. We weighed the copper of the
objects and of the vases, and found (it to be) [500 deben?] of copper, (13) 100
deben of copper falling to the share [of each man?] (Peet, 1920, p. 20).
— 167 —
The loot altogether was between 45 and 47.5 kg of copper, depending on the
interval of the weight of New Kingdom’s deben between ninety and ninety-
five grams. This must have been a substantial haul for five men looting the tomb,
thus they have been undisturbed for a longer time, while emptying its contents.
The fragmentarily preserved papyrus provides evidence that they were eventually
caught, interrogated and, apart from the metal, they looted also fine textile from
the tomb. Nevertheless, for us it is important that they treat metal Hsmn as a
specific category of bjA. Even in Dynasty 20 and in an official document, the
distinction between bjA and Hsmn was made, but the semantically broader word
bjA is clearly indicated as an overarching concept in the document. A similar
approach is confirmed by the Notebook of Dhutmose, where in verso, col. 7a,
both Hsmn and scrap copper were counted into twenty deben units altogether. But
in many other places, Dhutmose preferred to write bjA instead of Hsmn.
Broader insight to be gleaned from the presented evidence is that the Bronze
Age Egyptians likely did not perceive the alloying of different metals as a major
technological change and used interchangeably different words. That is in dis-
crepancy with the perception of alloying as the major advancement in the presu-
med “evolutionary” view of the early technology, although such views are
assessed critically in recent literature (Kienlin, 2016).
Harris explained the absence of Hsmn from the Graeco-Roman Period in this
manner: “It seems, therefore, possible that in later texts Hmty includes both cop-
per and bronze, […]” (Harris, 1961, p. 64). And that is, actually, the argument
Fig. 9. — Papyrus Mayer B with the mentions of Hsmn and bjA metals, inv. no. M11186. Inserted
letter N marks the occurrences of the sign N34, letter U marks the occurrences of the sign U32
(courtesy of the World Museum Liverpool).
— 168 —
this text is making: the distinction between bjA and Hsmn was blurred for some
writers of the ancient Egyptian texts, and they liberally used either this or that
word, depending on context and also on choices, which might be unclear to us
at present. That was a conclusion of other Egyptologists dealing with the actual
ancient evidence (Valbelle, 1977, p. 15). And despite the research done in Egyp-
tology, archaeology and archaeometallurgy, we will have to wait for definitive
and statistically representative answers. Until then, the translation of this partic-
ular word appear to be tentative.
Conclusion
This paper deals with the correct lexicographic identification of the word Hsmn,
which was in Egyptology usually translated as “(tin) bronze”, if denoting metal.
Broad overview of the evidence demonstrates that the word was used sparingly
and in many texts, another word, specifically bjA, was used for objects that can
be presumed to be made of tin bronze and were identified as such by archaeo-
metallurgical analytical work. @smn can be translated as tin bronze and/or arsen-
ical copper, although bjA can be used for the same metals throughout the Egyptian
Bronze Age as an overarching category for a copper-base metal and/or alloy. In
other words, we cannot expect modern scientific precision from ancient languages
when denoting materials. The distinction between bjA and Hsmn was blurred for
some writers of the ancient Egyptian texts, and they liberally used either this or
that word, depending on context and also on choices, which might be unclear to
us at present. Despite the current importance of the concept of metal alloying, it
does not seem to be perceived as an important step by the authors of Bronze Age
texts, if they use the words and categories interchangeably.
Ancient texts were not produced by artificial intelligence, but by humans. The
choices they made in producing the texts might not be always clear, and they
appear to be scientifically less rigorous that we wish them to be. It does not mean
that we should abandon researching them, just that we should be aware of
mo ving among the different categorizations and discourses between Egyptology,
archaeo logy and archaeometallurgy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The research was carried out as part of the UKRI-funded “EgypToolWear – Metalwork
Wear Analysis of Ancient Egyptian Tools Project”, a Horizon Europe Guarantee (origin ally
Marie-Sklodowska Curie Fellowship), project reference no. EP/X026434/1. The author
would like to thank Federico Zangani (University of Cambridge) for comments on the text.
— 169 —
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